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Opinions on The Shogun? We just finished it, and I quite liked it all around. Solid plot, good visuals, great characters like Toranaga and Yabushige and Mariko (and acting performances), the Anjin grated me a bit at first but I got used to it. Probably the best miniseries of such kind in a long time...
...and yet, I don't think there's been an inlength discussion on it here. I suppose that's what happens when something is good; it's not as notable as when something can be complained about, especially since there's precious little of anything that might be seen as wokeness here. I haven't read the book (I tried some time ago but got sidetracked pretty quickly), but I haven't seen complaints about major deviations or deviations from (lightly fictionalized) actual history.
Honestly, I found it thoroughly unremarkable.
Now, it's been a long while (20 years?) since I watched the old Shogun series, so I certainly have some rose-colored glasses on, but somehow I didn't really enjoy my the new one like I expected to based on my fondness for the old one.
The plot seemed to meander meaninglessly, with the intrigue too opaque to make sense to the viewer, and the characters too guarded and game-of-thronesy for their motivations to really shine through.
The visuals were...decent, I suppose, but the desaturated and heavily filtered appearance made it look unreal and cheap.
The characters, oof. Yabushige was fun but too cartoonish. Omi, Nagakado, Saeki, Hiromatsu, Buntaro, Tsuji and Fuji were enjoyable, relatable even, but seemed to have very limited agency. But ultimately the whole tale revolves around Toranaga, Mariko, Anjin and Ishido. Ishido, meh, good performance but is mostly just there to act as a less-competent foil to Toranaga. Toranaga I don't know about; I just greatly preferred the Mifune version. Mariko and the Anjin were outright painful to watch, with Mariko being so wooden her husband wanted to kill himself (I guess that's the point) and getting too much attention by half, and the Anjin just being an overdramatic clown.
At least the fight scenes were modestly decent.
Overall it's just...mediocre. There were production values, some decent performances, some that really missed the mark for me, but in the end it needs to measure up to Rome, and no, it's not Rome.
I also thought it was... fine. I only made it halfway through the book before giving up, so clearly this story is just not for me.
My husband, on the other hand, thinks it was the best TV he's seen in years. Mileage varies on this one!
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